


Chalkboard Letters

by blarkeontheark



Category: The 100 (TV)
Genre: Angst, DEFINITELY not a happy ending, F/M, Lots of Angst, Sadness, i had to put on my sad writing playlist for this, idk i put a lot of thought into this, it is also happy at times, mentions of Bellamy, mentions of callie, mentions of raven and emori and luna and murphy, two separate storylines but they kinda intersect
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-03-23
Updated: 2017-03-23
Packaged: 2018-10-09 13:48:07
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,640
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10413567
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/blarkeontheark/pseuds/blarkeontheark
Summary: Marcus Kane and Abby Griffin didn't get along.Until they did.But the story is a lot more complicated than that.





	

**Author's Note:**

> :)

The first time Abby saw Marcus Kane in medical, she was more than displeased to see him, given the case they'd been arguing today: whether to float the father of a five-year-old boy for taking more than his share of rations. 

It had been a useless fight on Abby's side, and she knew it. She had not been present for the execution. 

"Dr. Griffin." Kane's lip curled ever so slightly. It was so Disney-villainous she wanted to laugh. 

"Here to put me on trial?" she asked coolly. "For looking you in the eye, maybe? Talking back to you?"

"I regret what had to be done today," he said coldly. "But it was necessary."

"Bullshit," Abby snapped. "Tell that to the kid who doesn't have half his family anymore."

"And hopefully he will grow up knowing the repercussions of such behavior. We wouldn't want to put him in the Sky Box, now, would we?"

Abby took a deep breath to calm her temper. "Can I help you, Councillor?"

"Unfortunately." He pulled back his sleeve to reveal a deep gash in his arm. "Sinclair wasn't looking where he was going."

Abby resisted the temptation to smirk. "Maybe he did it on purpose," she suggested innocently, guiding him to a chair. "Could you blame him?"

Jackson appeared at her side with a bandage and some medical supplies. Abby mouthed a thank you and turned her attention to cleaning the blood off of Kane's arm. 

"Abby."

She lifted her head to give him a scathing glare. 

"Dr. Griffin."

"What?" she snapped. 

"I don't want you to be under the impression that I personally dislike you."

Abby almost snorted, but she caught herself. "Why?" she asked, stitching up the gash. 

Kane winced, barely perceptibly. "Why? Because I don't. Any professional disagreements—"

"Professional disagreements become personal when people die, Marcus."

He sighed as she tied off the bandage. "Look, Dr. Griffin. I don't dislike you. I even respect your opinions—"

"You say it like it's a big deal and not basic human decency." Abby stood up angrily. "There. The stitches come out in ten days."

Kane sighed. "I'm sorry."

Carefully, he rose to his feet and headed for the door. 

"Marcus." She wasn't sure, in that moment, what possessed her, but she called his name anyway. 

He turned to face her. For once, his hair wasn't slicked back, and it fell around his face in waves. "Yes?"

"I don't hate you either."

A wry smile slid across his face. "That's always good to hear."

…

He remembered when they were just eighteen. A year before she started dating Jake, when they were still friends, and one night when they snuck into an airlock and she drank an entire bottle of moonshine on a dare. 

She was absolutely, incomprehensibly drunk, slurring her words and stumbling around with a wide smile on her pretty face. Her soft brown hair had been almost down to her waist then, and she had always had such nice eyes. 

Somehow it had fallen to Marcus to figure out how to get her back to her room at the end of the night, after a heated game of rock-paper-scissors. Marcus had seen the twinge of jealousy in Jake's eyes, but as he was dating Callie Cartwig at the time, he had no business escorting Abby back to her room. 

So Marcus had wrapped an arm around her, supporting almost her entire body weight—which wasn't much. She was a tiny thing, probably less than a hundred pounds. 

"Come on, Abby. I got you."

She giggled. "Marcus."

"Abby, do you even know what day it is?"

She pondered that one for a minute. "My birthday?"

Marcus sighed. Even if it was her birthday, he'd have no way of knowing. But Jake hadn't mentioned it, so he assumed it wasn't. "No."

She won't remember any of this in the morning, he thought. 

He hoped. 

"You look beautiful," he said cautiously. "You look beautiful every day."

She wasn't listening, humming to the walls as they passed. 

"I think you should be the Chancellor one day," he continued. 

She tipped her head back and stared at the skylight above them. "Look at the stars!"

"And also," he mumbled. "I'm in love with you."

She giggled, oblivious to his confessions, tracing the invisible lines of the constellations in midair. 

"And maybe, just maybe I'll be able to tell you one day. When you're not completely obliterated on moonshine."

"Maaaarcus."

They had reached her door. Marcus fumbled in her small shoulder bag until he located her ID. 

"Marcussssss."

"Yes?" he sighed. 

She buried her face against his shoulder. "You're usually so cold," she sang. "You should be nice more often."

Unable to stop himself, he kissed her lightly on top of her head. "Go to sleep," he said. "Tomorrow, Jake Griffin will be trying to impress you again, and you'll forget I exist, and I'm not looking forward to it."

Abby giggled and waltzed inside, shutting the door behind her. 

…

"You just can't leave well enough alone, can you?"

Kane stared at the woman in front of him. While Abby Griffin was always a composed presence, she seemed to have forgotten herself—missing the Council meeting this morning, trying to get her daughter out of solitary, and now, hysterically weeping in the middle of her living room. 

"I don't—"

"Just for one goddamn second, let me be alone!" she shouted. "Thelonious has been bothering me since dawn with some lighting issue in Farm Station, and now you show up at my door—"

"Abby, listen to me!"

She finally stopped, folding her arms around herself. It was almost as if she were literally pulling herself together. 

"I came with condolences," he said finally. "And I brought a bottle of wine. I thought maybe you'd want company."

"If this is about the meeting—"

"This is not Councillor Kane right now. This is Marcus. And I'm here to see Abby, not Dr. Griffin."

She paused, pursing her lips. 

"Maybe Abby doesn't want to see Marcus," she muttered, but stepped aside to let him in. "You promise you don't have any ulterior motives about the Council meeting?"

"Most women would be concerned that a man who came to their door with a bottle of wine would have different ulterior motives than a Council meeting," Kane answered wryly. 

Abby snorted. "That's the one thing I don't have to worry about."

Kane raised an eyebrow as he uncorked the wine. "Meaning?"

"Shall we start with the fact that you hate me?" Abby ran a hand through her hair. It hadn't been washed in a few days. "And you're Kane, for God's sake. There isn't a sentimental bone in your body." She frowned. "Which is why I have no idea why you're here."

"You lost your husband."

"And you must know that I don't blame you for Jake's death." Abby bit her lip, grabbing two cups out of the cabinet. "I don't even blame Thelonious, really."

"You blame yourself. For following the law."

"I don't want to talk about it, Kane."

"You used to call me Marcus."

The sentence slipped out before he could stop it. She turned to face him. 

"When? When we were, what, twenty? I'm surprised you can even remember that far back."

"Try up until you married Jake. Those years you spent with him and both of us joining the Council destroyed whatever bond we had as friends. I'm sorry that happened. But there is no reason for us to be hostile to each other."

"You started it." Abby knew she sounded childish. She couldn't help it. 

Kane sighed and took the glass she passed him. "I'm sorry. I'm sorry about Jake. I'm sorry about everything."

She squinted at him over the rim of her own glass. "So you really didn't come to brief me on the meeting."

"I came to see if you were okay."

She took a sip. "I just didn't realize you cared," she said quietly. 

His eyes softened. "I always have."

…

"Bet you have a wicked hangover."

Marcus recognized Abby's laugh from around the corner, and slowly emerged. Abby and Jake were coming back from the Sky Box, he realized, having visited a friend in lockup. Neither of them noticed his presence. 

"It's unreal." Abby tossed her mane of light brown hair. "I honestly can't remember a second of last night after that moment. What was I thinking?"

"Do you remember getting back?"

"No." She frowned. "Someone must have gotten me there. I wouldn't have been capable of walking two feet in the right direction."

Marcus let out a breath of relief. So she didn't remember. 

"It was Marcus, actually," Jake said. "I would have, but...Callie, y'know."

"Marcus, huh?" Abby snorted. "Bet he made fun of me the whole way. He can be an ass sometimes. I can picture the snide comments now."

"Try all the time. Hey, there's something I've been meaning to ask you..."

Their voices faded and Marcus was left staring after them, a cold feeling seeping through his veins. 

Just then, watching the two of them walk away, knowing how his friends really felt about him, he could perfectly envision how the rest of his life would go: Abby, the girl he'd had a crush on forever, marrying Jake fucking Griffin. Any child of theirs would probably take over the world, with his charisma and her stubbornness. And he would be nowhere. Stuck in engineering, maybe. 

There was really only one thing to do. Work hard. Study hard. And someday, become Chancellor. 

From that day forward, Marcus Kane was a different person.

…

Abby threw her head back and laughed. 

It was a cold, incredulous laugh. Far too hard and cynical for the woman that had grown up too fast. "That's ridiculous."

"I'm not kidding." Kane folded his hands and stared her directly in the eyes. "We are running out of oxygen. A hundred extra people on the ground—"

"The ground. With the radiation," Abby snapped. "And you aren't talking about sending one hundred responsible adults. You're talking about kids."

"Maybe you're just biased," Kane said cuttingly. "Since, if I remember correctly, it's also your kid."

If looks could kill, Kane would definitely have been dead just then. 

"Clarke has nothing to do with this." Her fingers, gripping the table, were white. 

"Clarke has everything to do with this." Kane sighed. "We're not condemning them to death, Abby. We're giving them a second chance."

"On the ground."

"It is time to vote," Jaha interrupted mildly. "All in favor of sending the 100 to the ground."

Kane, Fuji, and Muir raised their hands. 

"And against?"

Caplan, Cole and Abby raised their hands. 

"It is up to the Chancellor," Caplan said. 

"Thelonious, please." Kane could see the raw desperation in Abby's eyes. "They're just kids."

"They are kids." Jaha took a deep breath. "And yet...we need them to do this."

Abby stood up. "Thelonious—"

"I vote yes," Jaha said simply. "Get the dropship ready."

He met each of their eyes, Abby's last. 

"We're sending the 100 to the ground."

…

"Marcus."

Marcus glanced up. Jake was there, grinning his easy grin. And as usual, Abby's arm was twined around his, her smile wide and her hair as long as it ever was. 

"I haven't seen you in ages, man. Not since Thelonious's twenty-fifth. Hey, why don't you come over later, to our place?"

Marcus had forgotten that Jake and Abby had moved in together last year. "I'm preoccupied tonight. But thank you."

"Come on, Marcus." Abby looked almost sad. "What happened? You used to hang out with us all the time."

"I decided I have other priorities." He couldn't keep the edge out of his voice. "That don't involve a stolen bottle of moonshine."

Jake stiffened, though his voice remained smooth. "What an allegation, Marcus Kane."

Marcus's eyes narrowed. "Be careful, Jake."

"Marcus," Abby protested. "Come over for a drink. It doesn't have to be like this."

"Yes," he said tiredly. "It does."

"Marcus—"

"Listen, Dr. Griffin, I've got to get back to work." 

Marcus strode away without another word. 

And after that, neither Jake nor Abby ever called him Marcus again.

…

Someone had written something on the old chalkboard. 

It was something Jackson had brought back from Mount Weather, but no one had ever though of using it. Yet someone now had scribbled a tiny flower on the corner of the chalkboard, with two small letters under it. 

MK. 

Abby felt a slow smile spread across her face. Thanks to Jaha and Pike, the entire camp might be falling to pieces, but she could at least count on a scribbled flower and two small chalkboard letters to make her smile. 

…

They were married within a month and had a baby within the year. 

Her name was Clarke, Kane heard. Clarke Griffin.

By the time she was two, she was already a miniature version of her father: identical smiles, identical hair, identical big blue eyes. 

Until the day he realized he could finally see her mother in her—the day she got out and set off down the hallway with the kind of determination only seen in the most stubborn of children. 

"Is that Clarke?" someone whispered. "Abby and Jake's kid?"

Kane sighed. "I'll bring her back."

Three-year-old Clarke was thoroughly unimpressed by Kane scooping her up, but after punching his head once, she seemed to determine that he was okay, and by the time he reached Abby and Jake's hallway, the girl was fast asleep on his shoulder. 

"CLARKE!"

Abby dashed down the hallway, looking frantic. Then she spotted Kane. 

"The door was open—I don't know how long—you found her?"

She looked resigned, as if she expected Kane to give her a lecture on looking after a child. And Kane was preparing to give her one. 

But then he lifted Clarke off her shoulder and watched as Abby carefully took her from him, stroking her blonde head. 

"Your daughter," he said quietly. "She's a lot like you."

"Meaning that she goes blundering off into situations she shouldn't be in?"

"Precisely." Kane tried not to smile. 

"People say she looks like Jake." Abby glanced down at Clarke. 

"She's got your personality." Kane rubbed his head. "And a strong right hook."

"I would say I'm sorry, but I've been inclined to do the same before." A wry smile took the edge off her words. "Marcus—"

"Yes?"

"Thank you."

He nodded. "Of course."

…

The island was a lonely place. 

Arkadia had burned, and she hadn't spoken to Marcus in days. 

And she was lonely. While Raven test-ran simulations and Murphy watched her to make sure she didn't collapse, she sat outside and thought about the impending radiation. 

She wished she had the radio—she needed to hear a voice that wasn't Raven's, or John's, or Emori's, or even Luna's. She hoped Clarke and Bellamy and Roan would arrive soon. She wished Marcus had come with them. 

Her fingers ached. She needed to do something. To feel something. All she could feel was despair. 

So much for showing them the way out of the darkness. 

Right now, all Abby could feel was a storm cloud. 

…

Abby watched her daughter talk to the boy. 

Fifteen-year-old Clarke, during her favorite day of the year: Unity Day. She'd spent time chatting with Jackson, who she'd known growing up (and who Abby had absolutely forbidden her from dating, ever) and now she was blushing under the smile of the dark-haired boy in the corner. 

"Bellamy Blake," said a voice at her side. "He's been eyeing Clarke for months."

Abby mumbled something uncomplimentary under her breath. 

"You've got to let her grow up a bit."

"That boy is twenty years old, and Clarke is fifteen."

"Almost sixteen," Marcus reminded her. 

"How do you know that?" Abby asked crabbily. 

"I have access to everyone's files. Being Vice-Chancellor has its perks."

"Can you use your perks to get that boy away from my daughter?"

Marcus smiled wryly. "Now, where would be the fun in that?"

"Marcus, I'm not entirely convinced you've ever heard the word fun."

The song changed to a slightly slower tune. Across the room, Bellamy offered an arm to Clarke, who took it. 

Abby huffed. 

"How's Jake?" Marcus asked, trying to keep her from marching over to Bellamy and causing a scene. 

Thankfully, she was smart enough to take the bait. "He's fine. Got a new project in engineering, but he won't tell me what it's about."

"A new project?" Marcus's brows creased. "I haven't heard this."

Abby felt a surge of annoyance. "Tragic."

He sighed. 

Recognizing the look on Abby's face, he caught her elbow. "Let her be fifteen. Remember what you were like at that age?"

Abby glanced at him sideways. "Why? Do you?"

Vividly, he wanted to say. "Just a bit."

"I remember eighteen," she said. 

Marcus remembered eighteen as well, but his memory was vastly different from Abby's. "The year you spent the whole night dancing with Jake?"

"I can't believe you remember that." She smiled. "That was when we first started going out."

Marcus sighed. He hadn't been looking for a story of Abby's love life; he'd lived through it himself. But at the same time, there was something about Abby Griffin smiling that made his whole posture soften a bit. 

She glanced at him. "I'm exhausted. Do you mind keeping crowd control for the rest of the night, or do you need me here?"

He forced a smile. "Go. Get some sleep. I'll see you tomorrow."

"Goodnight, Marcus."

He watched her go. She was so small, and yet her presence was so commanding. 

If only...

If only so many things. 

…

"Abby."

Marcus knew the woman next to him couldn't hear a word he said. 

And yet, that didn't stop him from clasping her hand, from stroking her hair. 

"You're so brave."

She continued to sleep, to dream of things not of this life, this life that she was no longer part of. 

Her breathing was shallow. It wouldn't be long. 

He felt as if a part of him had died. A part of him had died the moment the Nightblood had turned against her system, ravaging her body from the inside. But he had sat through the blood, sweat and tears, sat with her as she died slowly and begged Jackson for an answer. 

In the end, there was no answer. 

"I love you," he whispered. "I love you. I'm sorry that it wasn't enough."

"Kane."

He looked up. Jackson stood before him, looking for all the world like he wanted to crawl into a hole and never come out. 

Marcus could relate. 

"Not yet," he breathed. 

"I gave you an extra twenty minutes. She's in pain, Marcus."

Taking a shaky breath, he stood up, never letting go of her hand. 

"She loved you, too," Jackson said quietly. "She really did."

Death is not a quick snap of the cord, Marcus discovered that day. 

Death is watching the boy who was practically the son of the woman you love remove the cords from her arm. 

One. By. One. 

Until you can't discern the moment she passes from one life into the next. 

The tears would come later, violent and shaking and heavy. But for now, Marcus could only stare numbly at Abby Griffin's body and wonder what to tell Clarke. 

…

Abby Griffin, he decided, was the most ridiculous, headstrong, entitled woman on the planet. 

A bad choice of phrase, considering that they weren't on any planet. But the Ark was notoriously bad for adapting turns of phrase, and no one had ever bothered to change it. 

Among the stars was a better term, he decided. 

"You are the most ridiculous, headstrong, entitled woman among the stars," he said to her, the next chance he got. Only it didn't have the cutting tone he'd aimed for. Instead it was warm and wry. 

"The stars, huh?" She looked almost proud of the insult. 

"Since we're not on a planet..."

She laughed. 

“I like that. I’ll have to use that one.” The look she gave him wasn’t friendly, exactly, but it was somewhere between annoyed and lightly exasperated.

“That was not the intended purpose, Councillor.”

They stood at the window together, watching as the sun slid by, so bright that the stars were barely visible for a moment.

Somehow, it reminded him of Council meetings, when she would lean forward in her chair and grip the table and speak so sharply her words were like fire-tipped arrows, aimed at each of the places that would hurt the most. She wasn’t just like the sun, she was the sun, and that realization was the first moment he was truly scared of Abby Griffin.

…

She didn’t have a gravestone.

He searched high and low for something to mark her grave, something to indicate that she wasn’t just another body on the count, another loss to the darkness of this world. She was their best healer, the love of his life, a mother to more than just Clarke.

Something caught his eye. A slab of gray.

The old chalkboard.

His gaze skipped across the flower he’d drawn earlier—the silly scribble to test out the chalk. But around the flower lay several planets, intersected by clumps of white stars. The way the illustration was laid out, the flower was the sun and all the planets surrounded it.

It was so familiar, so Abby, he almost laughed.

He crouched next to the board and carefully lettered in a few words.

ABIGAIL “ABBY” GRIFFIN  
MOTHER, FRIEND, HEALER  
B. AMONG THE STARS, D. AMONG THE FLOWERS  
MAY WE MEET AGAIN

He picked up the chalkboard and started off towards her grave. With every step, the familiar mantra echoed in his head.

May we meet again.

May we meet again.

May we meet again.

“We will.”


End file.
